


Pinkie Swear

by isquinnabel



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Best Friends, Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 18:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3078464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isquinnabel/pseuds/isquinnabel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mallory and Jessi had many things in common, and that included a certain knack for being able to make strange things happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pinkie Swear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phidari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phidari/gifts).



> BSC/Harry Potter fusions are one of my favourite things to write. I had a lot of fun writing this for you, Ketsu! Happy fandom stocking <3

 

_**EXTRACT FROM THE OFFICIAL CHARTER OF THE SALEM WITCHES INSTITUTE.** _

_ SECTION 3: STUDENT RECRUITMENT: _

_Student recruitment officers, administrative staff and academic staff must respect the Salem Witches Institute’s conditions of enrolment at all times. These conditions are outlined as follows:_

  * _Places at the Institute are only to be offered to female students._
  * _Only students with the innate ability to produce magic are to be offered places at the Institute._
  * _Students are eligible for enrolment at the Institute once they reach twelve years of age. On their twelfth birthday, students of non-magical parentage will be notified of their eligibility in person, while students of magical parentage will be notified of their eligibility via post._
  * _Under no circumstances are Institute staff to initiate contact with potential students who are of non-magical heritage. This is the exclusive role of Muggle Liason Officers hired by the United States Department of Magical Governance._
  * _While any student fitting the above criteria is welcome to study at the Institute, preference will be given to students residing in the Northeastern United States. For the purposes of this document, this includes the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington D.C._



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_

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Mallory Pike and Jessica Ramsay were best friends. When they first met, it quickly transpired that they had a substantial number of things in common: they both shared a love of horses and of reading; they both wore glasses (Jessi’s were for schoolwork, while Mallory wore hers all the time); and they both were the oldest child in their respective families. Of course, they were not so excessively similar as to find each other irritating. Jessi, for example, was a driven, talented ballet dancer, while Mallory cherished a lifelong goal to become a respected author. Their differences and similarities had combined to form a perfect cocktail, and their decision had been set in stone. They were best friends, with the matching gum wrapper chains to prove it.

As time went by, Mallory and Jessi discovered yet more things that they had in common, such as a love of children, a distaste for beauty pageants, and a longing to prove to their parents that they had well and truly entered the realm of adulthood. However, their biggest similarity of all was not identified until approximately six months into their friendship. It was disguised as something inconsequential, and had either of them been looking in the right places they would have noticed much sooner.

Mallory and Jessi shared a knack for making odd things happen.

Mallory’s earliest memory was tearfully promising her mother that she would never again hit one of her younger siblings. She had been three years old with (as is common with toddlers) a rather poor handle on her temper, particularly where her two-year-old triplet brothers were concerned. She had been horribly angry at the time, but that could not quite explain the surge of power that had pulsed through her body when she pushed Adam over. He hadn’t been badly hurt, just a little dazed, but she had been horrified by how dramatically (and _loudly_ ) he had crashed through the kitchen wall. She learned her lesson, and never laid a finger on any of her siblings ever again. It was not, however, the last time that something strange was to happened to her.

Jessi, meanwhile, had to be extremely careful in her dance classes. If she wasn’t paying attention, her tour jetés could become unnaturally high, or cover far more distance than was realistically possible. It was a difficult balance, attempting to perfect her leaps in class while simultaneously trying to keep her strange abilities hidden; she doubted her classmates would exactly be patting her on the back if they saw what she was capable of doing. No, she preferred to save her special jetés for her own private, early-morning practice sessions. The only person she would occasionally allow to watch was her younger sister. Becca was the perfect audience: she would gasp and laugh and clap, enjoying every second of Jessi’s increasingly daredevil leaps, before miming a padlock on her lips and throwing away the key. Jessi would grin, feeling absolute confidence that this secret was theirs forever.

As it turned out, the secret was theirs only until the winter of sixth grade.

  


\-------

  
It was the first week of the volleyball unit in gym class, a time of year that Mallory considered torture in its purest form. Once the classes had been divided into teams and sent to their courts, Ms. Walden and Mr. DeYoung began to distribute the volleyballs.

“Ms. Walden, this one’s flat.”  
“Sorry, Gall. Try this one.”  
Helen Gall jumped to catch the second ball, and it deflated slightly on impact with her hands.  
“This one’s flat too!”

It quickly became apparent that very single volleyball in the gym had deflated. The entire period was frittered away with a handful of kids fruitlessly trying to pump up the volleyballs while the rest of the students talked or goofed off on the bleachers.

“How can every single volleyball have a leak?” exclaimed Ms. Walden. “They were fine in first period! What on earth happened?”

Jessi knew her best friend extremely well, and there was something about Mallory’s facial expression that didn’t quite add up. As one would expect, she was hiding a grin – quietly pleased with how the lesson had turned out, but not stupid enough to openly gloat in the gym – but there was something else in there. Mallory wore the barest hint of a smirk, and a wicked gleam sparkled behind her eyes. Something was up, Jessi was absolutely certain of it.

Jessi waited until their walk home before mentioning anything about the gym incident. The two best friends strolled side-by-side down Elm Street, giggling about nothing in particular, when Jessi casually changed the subject.

“That was crazy in gym class today, huh?”  
Mallory shrugged. “I guess so.”  
“What are the odds of every single volleyball having a leak? Ms. Walden even said she’d used them in first period! How do they all wear out at once? It’s so bizarre.”  
“I’d call it lucky,” muttered Mallory, ducking under a low-hanging tree branch.  
“Well, you would,” teased Jessi, in an attempt to lighten things up. Mallory’s mood had taken a sudden downturn and she didn’t answer; she stared at her feet, step after step after step.

After a few minutes had passed, Jessi screwed up her courage and took a deep breath.  
“Hey, Mal,” she asked hesitantly. “You didn’t have something to do with the volleyball thing today, did you?”  
Mallory froze. “Why do you ask?”  
Jessi shrugged. “I dunno. You’re being weird about it.”  
“I’m not being weird.”  
“You’re _totally_ being weird. Besides,” she grinned, “it’s about the most Mallory Pike crime ever. I mean, if it _is_ a crime. I guess it could just be a really weird co-incidence.”  
Jessi doubted that. It was far too unlikely – if Mallory wasn’t behind this, somebody else was.  
Mallory glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Can you keep a secret?”  
“Mal. Of course I can keep a secret.”  
Mallory grabbed Jessi’s forearm and yanked her behind a large oak tree.  
“Ow! That hurt!”  
“Sorry.”  
Jessi rubbed her arm while Mallory darted around, presumably checking that the coast was clear.  
“Okay. Are you going to tell me or what?”  
Her eyes were wide. “You won’t tell anyone?”  
“Of course not.”  
“Pinkie swear?”  
“Pinkie swear.”  
After they had briefly locked pinkie fingers, Mallory took a deep breath.  
“Jessi.”  
“Mallory.”  
“I didn’t touch the volleyballs.”  
Jessi’s shoulders slumped. “Are you kidding me? You’re really terrible at secrets, Mal!”  
“No no, I’m not done.” Mallory bit her lip. “I didn’t touch the volleyballs, but it was me. I did it.”  
“What? Are you serious?”  
“I’m serious.”  
“Did you get someone else to do it for you? That would make sense, I could see you as a criminal mastermind.”  
“No!”  
“Well then, what happened? How did you do it?”  
Mallory sighed. “I just… I didn’t really mean to do it, I don’t think. Or maybe I did, I dunno. I… I just really didn’t want to play volleyball, Jessi. It just… happened.”  
Jessi stared.  
“You think I’m crazy,” said Mallory, her voice flat.  
“No. No, no I don’t.” Jessi’s mind was whirling in dizzying circles.  
“You do, too. Forget it, I shouldn’t have said anythi-“  
“Mallory!” Jessi grabbed her friend’s shoulders, eyes bright and smile wide, and Mallory fell silent.  
In a voice that was barely audible, Jessi whispered, “ _I can do it too_.”

  


\-------

  
“I dunno, Mal, I don’t think I’m getting any better.”  
“Sure you are,” argued Mallory. “You totally slowed it down that time.”  
Jessi shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I don’t think I can control any of it, except for my leaps.”  
“But this is exactly the same thing! You’re just doing it to something else instead of yourself.”  
“First of all, Countess Bear is some _one_ , not some _thing_. Second of all, it’s completely different! When I do jumps, I know what I’m doing. I’m completely in control of my body and I just somehow know exactly what it is I have to do. With this, all I’m doing is waving my arms around while you throw stuffed animals at me!”  
“You can too do more than the jumps, what about the other week?”  
“What, when I burned Aunt Cecelia’s cauliflower?”  
“Yeah.”  
Jessi shook her head. “I didn’t control that. I was really mad that we were having cauliflower again, and it just happened.”  
Mallory sank onto the floor, resting her chin in her hands.  
“Your jumps are the only ones that don’t fit the pattern.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Well, they’re the only thing either of us can control really well.”  
“You do okay with the stuffed animals.”  
Mallory wrinkled her nose. “Kinda, but I can’t do it when it counts.”  
The previous day, Mallory had been hit in the head with a soccer ball during gym class. She was still sporting a slight bruise above her left eye.  
“Were you trying?”  
“Yes,” she retorted. “It’s harder to stop when it’s some huge soccer ball going at a hundred miles an hour.”  
“Okay, okay.” Jessi joined her on the floor, pulling a cushion into her lap. “Anyway, you were saying. The pattern.”  
Mallory gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling.  
“I think most of it is kind of emotional? Like, you being angry about Aunt Cecelia’s cauliflower, or me dreading having to play volleyball. Your jumps are the only ones that don’t really fit that.”  
Jessi’s eyes lit up.  
“No, I think that’s it. You’ve got it.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah! I mean, I don’t think I could explain exactly how I do those leaps, but… it’s something to do with feeling free. It’s like this big release, I feel really happy and I use that to draw it out somehow. I don’t know, I can’t say it in a way that makes sense, but I think you’re right. It works on emotion.”

The two friends sat quietly for a moment, giving these new thoughts time to sink in.

“So… now what?”  
“Now?” Jessi grinned. “Now we wear our hearts on our sleeves, and let chaos happen!”  
Mallory threw a pillow at her, and they rest of their evening dissolved into ridiculous jokes and endless fits of giggles.

  


\-------

  
“I have a plan.”

It was the beginning of May. The grass on the Pikes’ lawn was long enough for the girls to lounge comfortably on the ground, but not so long that it caused their bare legs and arms to grow unbearably itchy. It was, as Vanessa liked to call it, ‘Peak Daisy-Chain Season’.

Jessi shielded her eyes from the sun. “Should I be scared or excited?”  
“You should be hopeful. And also excited, plus a ton of other good things.”  
“Does it have to do with your birthday?”  
“It has everything to do with my birthday.”  
Mallory raised herself up onto her knees and, with the air of someone making a grand announcement to an adoring public, began to speak.  
“Starting tomorrow, this will be the year, the very year, that I finally convince my parents that I am old enough and responsible enough get contacts.”

After a few seconds, Mallory realized that Jessi wasn’t applauding. In fact, she was looking at her rather skeptically.  
“What?”  
“Well… didn’t your parents say you can get contacts when you turn fifteen?”  
“Well, yeah, but –“  
“You’re turning twelve tomorrow.”  
“I know, but –“  
“You’ve tried this on them before and they haven’t budged. Even when –”  
“Jessi!” wailed Mallory. “Why are you ruining it?”  
“I’m not ruining anything, I’m just reminding you of what you already know.”  
Mallory rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to be reminded of what I already know, I need you to tell me that my plan is brilliant.”  
“Your plan is brilliant.”  
“ _After_ I’ve explained it.”

Mallory lay back down, and began ripping a handful of grass into confetti.

“First of all, Mom and Dad are totally expecting me to bug them about getting contacts the second I hit twelve. But I won’t. I’ll wait. At the very least, I’ll wait three or four months before casually bringing it up at an opportune moment.”  
“And you think they’ll say yes?”  
“No, I think they’ll still say no, but I’ll have demonstrated maturity by not begging them right away. It’s part of the long-term plan that will reach its climax on my _thirteenth_ birthday. Got it?”  
“Kind of.” Jessi rolled over onto her stomach, and began braiding blades of grass together. “It’s okay. It’s not completely unrealistic, I’ll give you that.”  
“Thank you.” Mallory grinned up at the sky. “I can still hope, though. You never know, Mom and Dad could have booked me in for an optometrist appointment as my birthday present.”  
“Mm hmm.”  
“Probably not, but they could have! I _am_ turning twelve tomorrow. You never know what could happen on your birthday.”

A bee trailed lazily past. The sky was the sort of bright blue that stirred mysterious excitement in the pits of stomachs, and the day felt rich with possibilities.

“Yeah,” agreed Jessi. “You never know what could happen tomorrow.”


End file.
